Listen up: Women in 'girly' jobs are also paid less than men. Now's the time to act

Previously unseen figures reveal that women are even earning less than men in
jobs which are female-dominated. Cathy Newman speaks to Labour's
Gloria de Piero, the Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, about what
exactly needs to change

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Photo: Film Stills

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Grazia magazine campaigned to close the pay gap between men and women.

So we all know women get paid less than men (20 per cent, on average, in case you’ve forgotten or find it too painful to remember). But here’s something I find surprising. Even in supposedly “girly” professions – that is industries where women traditionally dominate – men still take home a bigger pay-cheque.

The Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities Gloria De Piero has sent me some figures which are frankly depressing. Some 92 per cent of hairdressers are women, yet those in full-time work are paid 18.8 per cent less than the guys. Cleaners and domestic staff are more often than not women (63 per cent), but they’re paid five per cent less.

Gloria de Piero in her Westminster office PHILIP HOLLIS

And in some of the lowest paid jobs, the gulf is at its widest. Forty-four per cent of employees defined by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as “packers, bottlers, canners and fillers” are women, but they’re paid 12 per cent less.

You might think there would be safety in numbers – that if women rule the roost in a particular sector, they might do better. Sadly not.

De Piero thinks that transparency is the answer. If companies are named and shamed into revealing pay data, women might start getting a fair deal.

She told me: “We need real pay transparency. At the moment the Equal Pay Act isn't working properly because the reality is most of us have no idea what our colleagues are earning, so how can women hope to challenge pay discrimination? Transparency around levels of pay for men and women who work in the same place will empower women and it will make plain where employers are failing to do enough to ensure women reach the top in their organisation.”

De Piero says an incoming Labour government would reinstate this bit of the law. The party’s policy shindig this weekend agreed it, so a manifesto commitment of some sort will now follow. Spookily, just 48 hours ago the Liberal Democrats came up with the exact same proposal, with Nick Clegg concluding that 40 years after the equal pay act “it’s time to accept that the voluntary approach does not go far or fast enough”.

Better late than never. (And by the way, that’s yet another area of agreement in any future Lib-Lab coalition.)

Of course, business will howl, and have already. The Institute of Directors’ so-called “diversity adviser” Lisa Buckingham described the Lib Dem plans as “crude”, and said they wouldn’t lead to change.

But from where I’m sitting, the current law allows companies to hide behind a cloak of anonymity, keeping their female employees in the dark. I’ve been trying to ask banks about what their female staff are paid, and the words blood and stone don’t really do it justice. Nomura, for example, sent me an email helpfully pointing out that disclosing pay along gender lines “didn’t come into law”. Goldman Sachs, too, told me bluntly: “this information isn’t public.”